Roos – postpartum planning

I think one message that’s important in talking to folks who are pregnant that could be protective for mental health care later on, is that a lot of the focus happens on pregnancy and on the birth. There’s a lot less discussion about what happens after the birth. So, knowing when baby is having a hard time eating in the middle of the night. What are you going to do? Who are you going to call? I got on YouTube, and was looking at the breastfeeding videos. It was crazy.  Are you going to formula feed or breast feed?  What are your options for that?  And where can you get support no matter how you choose to feed your baby? Also knowing when your baby gets sick for the first time, if you’re having low mood, what are you going to do?

So to talk through some of those more challenging situations that can come up and trying to talk with patients about what their plan is, who would they identify, who’s their support system, can they reach out to them ahead of time and ask for advice? And if a patient has a really hard time identifying that support system, that might be an indication that they’re at risk for having a hard time when they have a hard time because it’s always hard. It’s never easy. There’s always challenges that come up.

So preparing families with connection to resources with, you know, folks like nurse home visitors or drop in groups in the postpartum period can be really, really helpful if you have that that warm handoff that someone recommended this group or said, come with me, I’ll be there on Wednesday. That’s going to be a lot easier for people to access than if it’s just a resource list, like 20 different places that you could go. You might think, I don’t know anyone that might be funny. So I think providing that postpartum planning even during pregnancy can be really, really important.